


Succession

by Scedasticity



Category: Homestuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 18:23:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5258942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scedasticity/pseuds/Scedasticity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Empress is dead. Long live the Empress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a prompt from pervertedhypocrisy on tumblr: "the Empress dies in an accident or her blood gave out and Feferi is suddenly in charge of everything and drags her friends with her cause she needs the help".

There is one qualification for service on the battleship Condescension, and it is catering to the Empress's every whim. You don't ask questions. Not ever.

You don't question her ability to deal with anything the latest primitive planet might throw at her. You don't question her blithely ignoring the locals who want to kill her for no good reason, or the locals who are suspicious of her for probably better reasons, or the warnings of the locals who are sincerely trying to be hospitable. You don't ask her why she wants to eat some particular thing. You don't ask her why she insists on taking some local juveniles for a joyride, or whether she's planning on returning them intact. You don't ask anything.

And when she suddenly seizes and collapses and DOESN'T GET UP AGAIN, your

mind

shuts

down.

It's the drones who take over, who access some never-meant-to-be-used protocol and announce the battleship Condescension will be returning immediately to Alternia to collect the new Empress. You will not be informing the rest of the Fleet until everything is in order.

You don't ask any questions.

( _You_ don't ask any questions, either, but then, you never do.)


	2. First Impressions

The new Empress is tiny.

Well. She's seven and a half sweeps old. You think she's normal for her age? You can't remember when you last saw a pre-adult.

She's tiny and obviously in shock, and probably getting more support from the drones than from any of the troll crew, who just keep staring at her like they expect her to turn into the Condesce and make their world make sense again. But she pulls herself together, and apparently works out how useless the crew is, because she instructs the drones to go invite her moirail and some other kid she knows to join her, and if they agree to bring them and their lusii and whatever they want with them and anyone else they think would want to come.

It's a thoughtfully composed order, but you guess she doesn't realize drones don't _have_ a concept of an Empress's request someone can say no to, and aren't very good at listening to anyone besides the Empress even when explicitly instructed to do so.

Aquarius arrives still trying to persuade the drones to get rid of all the stupid fake childish wizard stuff he told them not to bring but they decided he wanted anyway. If he'd just shut up about it, he probably could have quietly disposed of it before anyone noticed, but no: now everyone knows. Most of the crew is too brain-dead to say anything, but you're going to keep it in mind. His lusus looks long-suffering.

Sagittarius arrives sweating and stammering and vowing to do anything the Empress requires, with a staid lusus at his side, a lot of machine tools, and a lot of broken robots.

(Both the Empress and her possibly-moirail seem nonplussed.

"Why invite Zahhak?" he whispers. "Like, I can see he'd be more useful than this lot, I don't know what's wrong with them, but–"

"I didn't," she whispers back. "Just you and Kanaya. I thought you invited him?"

"No, just Vris and Kar. And Pyrope, cause I think she might actually be useful."

"Huh. …Maybe Vriska invited him?")

Libra arrives grinning and _terrified_ , and with the information that the drones moving her unhatched lusus was responsible for the sizable explosion you detected on-planet a little while ago. The terror abates when she gets assurance this is nothing to do with her being blind. She is not in any way ashamed of her vast assortment of "executed" plush toys. It baffles the crew, so you have to approve.

(The Empress is highly dismayed to learn that refusal was very clearly not an option. "Dammit! I made sure to say _if they agreed_ – Ergh, and now they're already going after Kanaya and Vriska and Karkat and probably Nepeta and whoever else Vriska mentioned–"

"Karkat?" Libra says, sightless eyes widening like that's a bigger deal somehow.

"What? I know he's a lowblood but I like talking to him."

"Nnnnnnnothing.")

Virgo, oh, Virgo arrives as serenely as if this was all her idea, tidily packed, and quite a bit later than Aquarius because she actually had the sense to contact people and ask their opinion _before_ giving their names to the drones. You can't really appreciate it, because _she's a Virgo_ and why don't they just stab you in the blood pusher and be done with it.

("Terezi?" she says, surprised. "I didn't give them–"

"Ampora did," Libra sighs. "To be fair he thought they'd let me say no."

"I'm really sorry," the Empress says, and she sounds so sorry it almost doesn't compute.

" _Was_ anyone interested?" Libra asks.

"Tavros and Gamzee. There were some others who didn't respond at all…"

"Whale, Eridan also pointed them at Vriska, and we're not sure what she's been telling them, besides Equius."

"Urk.")

Taurus is one of the ones who agreed beforehand, and you can see why, because he arrives in a four-wheel device, his lusus hovering over his head. The Empress's glare dares any of the crew to make an issue of it. Naturally they don't.

("Um, thank you for this, uh, Heiress – Empress–"

"You can call me Feferi. I'm glad someone's getting something out of it. Did you tell them anyone else?"

"…They didn't ask me, they just looked at my computer."

"…Well.")

Scorpio arrives in shock, because the drones were unusually creative in interpreting their orders to bring her lusus and just brought its head. In their defense it was obviously impractically large and reportedly impractically obstreperous, but you still feel they could have avoided hauling in Scorpio drenched in her lusus's blood. There is also an impractically large amount of treasure, and an absurdly large number of magic 8 balls.

(The Empress starts hitting herself repeatedly in the face with the arm of one of Sagittarius's broken robots, alarming everyone. Virgo tentatively suggests maybe she could take Scorpio somewhere to clean up, but Libra disagrees – says they should all stay together until the drones finish whatever they think they're doing. She does, however, support the drones moving the oozing spider head to somewhere not right next to her lusus-egg.)

Leo arrives tied up in a _sack_ , and _Leo_. She tumbles out hissing and spitting into Sagittarius's arms, and that combination looks wrong to you but no one asked you and she does calm down. She doesn't have much baggage besides a tablet, a paintset, and her lusus – also tied up in a sack.

(The Empress starts to apologize profusely, pauses, looks at the still-staring crew, moves around so they can't see her past the treasure and broken robots, and resumes apologizing profusely.

"It's pawl right," Leo says. "If they'd just _said_ they were taking me to Equius–"

"I think Kanaya's the only one who managed to get any kind of meaningful explanation out of them," Libra says ruefully.

"…Are we expecting anyone else?"

"They got Gamzee's name from Kanaya and Karkat's name from Eridan, Vriska may have said any number of things but isn't talking now, and they looked at Tavros's computer… so yes."

"Karkat?" Virgo says, and gives Aquarius a reproachful look.

"What?")

Aries arrives more annoyed than enraged, much to everyone's apparent relief, and you can see why. Her lusus looks mild enough, but she's crackling with energy, some psionics and a lot of necropathy. The only Aries you know is a specter. And you're detached enough from this that you can look at her and think – as the new Empress is to the old, this child is to the Demoness.

("I am _so sorry_ about this."

"It may yet turn out for the best. …Have any of them said anything?"

"A lot of ‘hail empress' when I arrived, but…"

"Yeah, I'd ask Vris if they're thinking at all, but, well…"

"I _see_."

"Do you think we could maybe, get rid of the head? It's making the other lusii nervous. Except Pounce, and I think Pounce wants to try to eat it."

"Pounce, no!")

The next arrival is unconscious, as is his bi

cy

clops

lu

sus–

Stop. Pull back. Reload.

Gemini arrives unconscious, and the drones are more than slightly scorched. They stolidly report the subject had to be rendered unconscious to be transported and they applied a psionic lockdown device for security. They also deliver an unconscious bicyclops, a lot of computers, and some crates making an ominous buzzing sound.

("Nobody open those," Taurus cautions. "The bees are REALLY unhappy. Is, um, is Sollux okay?"

"He's doped up pretty good, but he should be fine. I'm just glad he didn't blow himself up. Loan me your daggerlance, these things are resistant to psionics." Aries cuts the device off Gemini and throws it into the pile of 8 balls.

"Invite. I said _invite_. Did someone change the meaning of the word and not tell me?"

"You mean like 'cull'?"

"Shut _up_.")

Capricorn's arrival is overshadowed by the arrival of his quite large, quite wet, quite irate lusus. It is reportedly also the reason his arrival is so delayed relative to Taurus's – his lusus could not be immediately located. Capricorn's luggage includes far too much subjugglator memorabilia which you may be tragically forced to destroy.

("Where the fuck are we going to put that?"

"Well don't ask the drones, they'll just decapitate it."

"Maybe the current crew can make themselves useful. For a change.")

The drones seem a little agitated about the last arrival, whose lusus is unconscious but who is fighting as hard as Leo was and whose sign is

is

is

isn't a sign

no that's Cancer, the computer says that's a legitimate sign, that's nothing else but Cancer, despite those horns and

Stop. Pull back. Reload.

The drones drop Cancer and report, "This is an illegal off-spectrum mutant, Empress. Culling–"

"No!" the Empress shouts. "No culling Karkat! I mean, um. No culling anyone for being off-spectrum, but– None of my friends – my advisors – these people who joined me here – are to be harmed by you or any drone or anyone or anything on board, do you understand?"

"Yes, Empress," say the drones.

"Yes, Empress," say the rest of the crew.

The Empress gives the drones a slightly wary look, and the troll crew a much warier look, and draws herself up to her full pre-adult height. "I am going to confer with my advisors. We– I require adequate facilities for… everyone. And someone respectfully dispose of that head."

("So it seems Feferi is the Empress now," Virgo says to Cancer ( _Virgo_ says to _bright red blood_ , what is this, what's happening). "Sorry about your getting abducted. It's all been a little confusing.")

You're not going to say you _like_ the new Empress, it's not your place to like or dislike or have any opinion about the Empress. But… you're not complaining about the change, just now.


	3. Reconnaissance (and Screaming) and Regrouping (and More Screaming)

The crew manages to pull it together enough to remember there's a giant tank they can put the seagoat-lusus in. Then they manage to direct the Empress, and friends, to the Imperial Deck.

"That's where your residenceblocks are, Empress," one of them says.

The Empress and company don't greet this with appropriate wariness, because they're too eager to get away from the crew. The whole entourage, including large unconscious lusii, unconscious Gemini, unresponsive Scorpio, dragon egg, random baggage, and everything else hustles all the way into the Empress's private receivingblock and closes the door, and the excellent soundproofing means the crew turning to leave the deck can't hear any of the screaming that ensues when they see all the mounted heiress heads.

The Empress manages to cut off her scream almost immediately, unlike several of the others. "I think I'm going to be sick," she croaks. Her possibly-moirail is too busy screaming to respond to this, but Libra claps her bracingly on the shoulder.

"Whatever it is, I'm sure you'll be fine."

"No licking!" Cancer ( _what the fuck what the **fuck**_ ) barks at her. "Do not lick the— Just don't!"

Virgo— No. Remaining impersonal is a great idea in general, it's served you well, but for the sake of your sanity Virgo is going to have to be _Kanaya_ , and Leo is going to have to be _Nepeta_. (You're going to have to think about Cancer eventually.) (And Gemini.)

 _Kanaya_ steps in. "Perhaps someone could help me locate an ablutionblock and get Vriska cleaned up?"

Both the Empress and Libra snap into action, the Empress gratefully heading out to look for an ablutionblock and Libra taking Scorpio's arm. Scorpio is still staring at the heads. And screaming.

Aries sighs at everyone. "Really, it's not like they even look that much like Feferi. And don't you think it's kind of nice, that they haven't been completely forgotten?"

Cancer stops screaming and hurls an 8 ball at her. " _No_. And someone has been using them for _ring toss_."

Good eye.

"Okay, fine, when Sollux wakes up he can destroy them all. Until then, can everyone calm down? A little? It's not helping."

Everyone can calm down. A little. Just in time to hear the Empress yelp as she discovers the ablutionblock has a gold life-size nude statue of the Condesce in the shower.

"Fef?" Aquarius calls, alarmed.

"Don't come in!" she shouts back. "Just… Aradia, can you come help me with something?"

Between the Empress's seadweller strength and Aries's psionics, they manage to break the statue out of the shower and shove it into a corner. The Empress rips down the velvet outer shower curtain to drape over it. This reduces the amount of visible gold in the ablutionblock by 39%.

"I knew she was a bloodthirsty tyrant," the Empress mutters. "I never realized she was… was… I don't e-fin have a word for this… why are the towel bars gold?"

"Maybe it will help distract Vriska?" Aries offers.

Scorpio does indeed seem a little distracted by the gold when Kanaya and Libra escort her into the ablutionblock. Kanaya does a double take. Libra holds her nose.

"Very bright in here!" she says. "Where's the shower?"

They strip Scorpio down and hose her off, lusus-blood swirling down the drain. She steps on the broken base of the statue, but it doesn't break the skin.

"Does she have a change of clothes?" Kanaya wonders. "I managed to pack some, but I'm not sure about anyone else…"

"I'm sure there's something here she can wrap up in," Libra says confidently. "Probably something appalling."

The Empress manages not to scream at the next, one-and-a-quarter-life-size, gold statue she finds, in the hall, but then, this one isn't nude. No, the next round of screaming starts when Sagittarius and Nepeta stumble into the concupiscenceblock. You can't really blame them — it's been a while since it was used, but longer since it was cleaned. You start calculating the likelihood of Sagittarius sweating himself into severe dehydration.

Cancer follows them in. "Don't tell me there are more heads in _fucking shit I'm too young to be seeing this_."

Sagittarius's lusus appears to agree, as he firmly drags Sagittarius out of the block, and Sagittarius drags Nepeta, and Cancer scrambles out on his own, but then Aquarius and Aries also have to come see what the fuss is about. This one even gets a little shriek out of Aries. (Aquarius, of course, just screams.)

"Was that Aradia?" Taurus calls from the receivingblock. "Did _Aradia_ scream?"

"Ghost!" Aries yells back. "Don't… uh, don't worry about it." Then, presumably to the ghost, "It's okay, I'm going to… get you… out of that… I'm not sure how you're in that, but… oh, ew… sorry… Eridan, can you go do that somewhere else? You can't even see the worst of it."

Aquarius goes to do that somewhere else. You do not speculate on what ghost Aries might be seeing. It's been a while since the Condesce got bored enough to get really _inventive_ in the concupiscenceblock, but, well… there are a lot of possibilities.

"Well, um, when you're done with that, or, uh, when someone else has a minute, could you come give me a hand? My four-wheel device is, uh, hung up on a robot, and Gamzee is, uh, a little distracted."

Capricorn is having a staring contest with one or more of the heads.

The Empress comes to get Taurus herself. "I think I've found the least horrifying block!" she announces, unjamming Taurus's four-wheel device, heaving Gemini over her shoulder, and taking Capricorn's arm. She leads them down through the lounge (three larger-than-live gold statues and murals depicting the Condesce dominating and slaughtering aliens, lowbloods, and highbloods) into the viewing area of the deep-sea aquarium. Taurus and Capricorn come face to lure with an anglerfish and start screaming. The Empress looks confused.

Aries emerges from the concupiscenceblock looking a little ill. "Let's just throw the heads and everything we want to get rid of in there and Sollux can incinerate the whole thing when he wakes up."

"Sounds like a plan," Cancer agrees grimly.

The plan hits a bit of a hiccup when it becomes apparent that anything resembling _throwing_ the heads leads Nepeta's lusus to regard them as a really great cat toy, and then Nepeta's lusus jumps on Cancer's lusus and wakes it up, and then they have to get Taurus back to the receiving block to stop the rampaging lusii.

Scorpio wanders out of the ablutionblock in a towel, stumbles over a stray head, shrieks, drops the towel, then tries to kill Aquarius for ogling. Taurus separates them using Cancer's lusus as an intermediary; it's very effective. Kanaya appears and offers a plush fuchsia lusus-wool robe. Scorpio accepts it even though she could probably use it as a tent.

"I brought my sewing machine, I can alter it later," Kanaya says. "Have we found somewhere to camp?"

"I guess the lounge?" says the Empress. "Unless someone wants to try the respiteblock. I liked the fish block, but…"

And on cue, Capricorn sees a hagfish and starts screaming again. Gemini wakes up, sees the hagfish, and recoils but doesn't blast anything. "Gamzee? What the fuck…"

"Sollux!" says Cancer. "So glad you could fucking join us! We're all advisers to the Empress now, aren't you thrilled— That's the fish block? No way in fuck am I camping in there."

Gemini listens to the explanation and asks for a computer. It takes a minute to locate one in the lounge, and another minute to work out the Empress needs to unlock it and give him access.

"We've got some stuff for you to destroy as soon as you're up to it," Aries informs him cheerfully. "And as long as you're in the computer, see if there isn't anywhere else we could stay. This is a little rough on everyone's nerves."

You can hardly wait to see what they make of the subjugglator guest suite.

* * *

They seem to have settled on camping in the lounge. Libra produces some colored chalk from somewhere and goes to… _improve_ the murals. It involves a lot of slightly out-of-position sunglasses. (She has an affection for bright red that makes you a little twitchy.) Scorpio gets Sagittarius to loan her some tools and starts trying to pry bits off the gold statues. Gemini scowls at the computer console and slowly works his way further into the system – you don’t interfere, you just watch. (He’s good at this. You never had a lot of interest in computers before– before–)

(Stop. Pull back. Reload.)

The Empress sits down to try to explain things more than the drones did.

“So, apparently, Her Imperious Condescension, uh… Well. She died. I’m not sure how. Except it had nothing to do with me, um, probably obviously. The Challenge isn’t… wouldn’t have been… until Conscription…” She swallows convulsively, probably thinking of the heads.

(The cat-lusus is currently destroying a fourth head, lying on the couch in the concupiscenceblock they agreed to incinerate. You’re not sure how Nepeta is going to react when she realizes.)

“So since the troll crew didn’t, uh, didn’t know what to do, the drones took charge? There was a protocol? To go get the new empress, which is, uh, me. More obviously. Sorry.”

Cancer (what the _fuck_ ) scowls. “What would they have done if there wasn’t an heiress?”

“I’m… not sure?”

Aquarius snorts. “By the look of it, they would have frozen and done nothing at all until they starved to death.”

“Dehydration gets you–”

“ _Yes I know_ it was a figure of speech.”

The Empress continues, “So the drones came to my hive – I had no idea they came in underwater versions! It was, uh, a surprise, but it also made some things Gl'bgolyb had been whispering to me the last few days make sense. Telling me I had to go take my place… I didn’t understand it. I’m not sure I would have believed it if I had. The Condesce doesn’t just… just… fall over and die.”

You sympathize. You spent easily the first hundred hours wondering if it was a particularly vivid and persistent hallucination. (The latest developments have not increased your confidence in your grip on reality, but whatever. You’ve tried to snap out of it. It didn’t work. You’re just going with it.)

“Anemoneway, the rest of the Fleet hasn’t been informed I guess? They didn’t seem to think it was really urgent, getting in touch with them, so I guess they’re mostly self-directed. They the Fleet, not they the crew. I don’t know what’s wrong with the crew.”

The crew is actually slightly more functional now that there exists an Empress and they aren’t hanging on her every word in this instant. But there’s nothing wrong with them. In the Condesce’s opinion.

“The crew being all… uh… like that scared me, so I asked for Eridan and Kanaya and whoever else. I really did try to specify it was a request not a command.”

As far as drones are concerned, requests _are_ commands.

“They were _at least_ supposed to explain things…”

“They… sort of did?” Taurus says. “I mean, uh, I already talked to Kanaya, so I knew already, but they said the Empress required my service – it at least made it clear it wasn’t some early culling thing.”

It comes out that Aquarius, Kanaya, Scorpio, and Sagittarius got more or less adequate explanations, Libra and Taurus got inadequate explanations, Nepeta, Cancer, Aries, and Gemini didn’t get much explanation at all because they tried to run, and Capricorn doesn’t know what kind of explanation he got due to it coming not long after use of mind-altering substances.

“But not sopor!” he adds quickly. “I promised, no more sopor.”

(You have never seen a Capricorn who’s so… _doofy_.)

“So,” the Empress says finally. “Here we are. Now what?”

“Redecorate?” Aquarius suggests.

The Empress rolls her eyes. “Yes, that, but longer term, I can’t figure out how to make the Fleet change anything they’re doing when it seems like they never even _interact_ with the empress.”

Aquarius nods. “Threaten them with the Vast Glub.” He frowns suddenly. “Uh, with both of us gone–”

The Empress shakes her head. “She’ll go back to deeper waters where she can feed herself, that’s not a problem, but I am not going to set off the Vast Glub because people won’t do what I say.”

“They don’t need to know that.”

Libra shakes her head, still coloring a subjugglator’s face moon pink. “They’ll work out it’s a bluff pretty fast if she’s trying to make them treat lowbloods better.”

“Oh right.”

Scorpio breaks a horn off a statue. “Maybe you could pretend to be completely insane and only making them treat lowbloods better out of spite.”

“I think if I did that I’d _go_ completely insane.”

“Well, we don’t have to figure it out right away, if we’re barely in communication,” Kanaya says practically. “Figure out how to handle this ship first. The rest of the Fleet can wait.”

“We still haven’t figured out how to handle this _blockset_ ,” Cancer groans. “Has anyone even looked in the respiteblock? I’m afraid to look in the respiteblock.”

A wise choice. The Condesce seemed to find the taxidermied Grand Highblood lurking in the corner to be a fond, restful reminder of an old friend, but you’re guessing the new Empress won’t agree.

“Don’t look in the respiteblock,” Aries says. You haven’t noticed her peeking. Ghost tipoff? Educated guess?

Gemini sighs. “On this deck, besides this blockset, there’s another for seadweller guests – mostly submerged, most of us couldn’t stay there – and one for subjugglator guests, which I’m guessing will be even worse than this one. And there’s a… diplomatic blockset? For aliens? When she wants to play extra nice before throwing them to the piranhas? That’s what it actually says in here.”

Kanaya nods. “Maybe after we get some sleep we can check those out to see if they’re any better. ”

…Yeah, those are still occupied.

* * *

After several hours of restless, sopor-less tossing and turning, Aquarius gives up and goes looking for a recuperacoon. This means he braves the respiteblock, and then – so much screaming. And alarmed investigation, and then _more_ screaming. And the late Grand Highblood becomes even later, courtesy Gemini. It’s a decently clean blast, doesn’t go more than a centimeter or so into the wall behind. (Might have been farther if the walls weren’t reinforced to make sure Her Imperious Condescension’s… more emotional moments… didn’t damage anything critical.)

“Why did you go in the respiteblock!” Cancer bellows. “ _You were told not to go in the respiteblock!_ ”

(It really takes you back–

Stop. Pull back. Reload.)

“I didn’t think there’d be a subjugglator in it!” Aquarius shouts. “Isn’t there a separate suite for that?!”

“That wasn’t a subjugglator, it was more horrifying taxidermy!”

“You’re welcome,” says Gemini.

“And now everything _smells_ like burnt taxidermy!”

Kanaya suggests that maybe they should check out the diplomatic blockset now.

Everyone troops back out into the Imperial Deck’s entry hall, Aries psionically lifting Taurus’s four-wheel device through the debris-strewn receivingblock. The Empress unwisely opens the first door she comes to, and screams louder than anything got out of her yet.

“I’m not goin’ to look this time,” Aquarius says firmly.

Most of the others seem to feel the same way, but Aries bounds over to look over the Empress’s shoulder, and her eyes widen. “ _Serket_! Is there anything alive in there?”

You don’t blame her, it’s a particularly lifelike display. You remember the mortartificer spent days just crafting the perfect agonized facial expression.

“Huh?” Scorpio follows her, tripping over the enormous robe she’s still wearing. “No, I don’t think–” And she shrieks as soon as she gets a look through the door. “I think that’s the _Summoner_!”

“What?!” says Aquarius. Most of the others look blank.

“That’s impressively old taxidermy if it is–” Aries cuts herself off. “Sorry, Sollux, can you just come get rid of this?”

Gemini obviously braces himself, and doesn’t scream, but he does recoil. “ _Fuck_!” He manages a more controlled blast this time, taking out the target and nothing else, but then shrugs and quickly sweeps the rest of the subjugglator entryblock, scorching the blood off the walls and setting several small fires.

Aries closes the door decisively. “I think we will not be staying in _there_.”

Scorpio stares at the closed door. “Like a butterfly pinboard…”

The Empress, trying to regain her composure, chooses the _correct_ door this time, and then frowns when it won’t open, even at her blood override. “That’s finny…”

She does fish puns too? Fantastic. Fintastic.

“Maybe it’s broken?” Aquarius suggests. “Hey Zahhak, come get this door open!”

It’s a nominally secure door, so it takes Sagittarius some effort, without the full strength and control he should grow into, but he eventually managed to force it open.

A bucket of vinegar and vegetable oil falls on his head.

_So. Much. Screaming._


	4. First Contact

Nepeta abandons freaking out in favor of grabbing Sagittarius’s shirt (his skin is a bit too slippery) and yanking him back out the door before he can fall forward into the field of improvised caltrops. Because they’re all seven-and-a-half-sweep-height, the catapult showers them (relatively) gently in shrapnel instead of hurling it into their faces. It wouldn’t have killed a fully-grown troll, wouldn’t even do any serious damage unless someone was unlucky, but it would definitely have stung. Much like the vinegar.

“There _is_ someone alive in _there_ ,” Scorpio says brightly.

“You couldn’t fucking say the diplomatic block was _occupied_?!” Cancer shouts at Gemini.

“I was looking at a schematic!” Gemini shouts back. “It didn’t list current occupants!”

“Can’t get a very good grip on them…” Scorpio says. “They might not be trolls.”

“In the diplomatic block, _imagine that_.”

Technically it’s a block _set_. There’s a _FWUMPH_ as an open paper sack is hurled into the entryblock from further in the blockset and sends finely pulverized grain everywhere.

Aries sneezes as the wave of dust reaches them, then blanches. “Oh _fu_ –” She throws up a psionic shield just as a glass vessel of fermented liquid stoppered with burning cloth is tossed into the entryblock and the whole thing goes up.

The timing was bad. No one was actually in the room. Also the pulverized grain wasn’t very well-distributed, so it wasn’t the biggest dust explosion you’ve ever seen – not even the biggest on board the ship – but a fully-grown troll standing in the middle of it might not have walked away.

“Why are they trying to kill us?” Aquarius shrieks.

“Maybe they found out about the ‘throw to the piranhas’ thing,” Kanaya suggests.

“What are they even doing here?” Libra says. “I can’t picture the crew picking them up, the drones wouldn’t be interested – have they been here since the Condesce died?”

The Empress blinks. “But that was – weeks ago!” She leans against Aries’s psionic shield, setting off a few sparks, to shout into the suite. “Has anyone been feeding you?!”

The only answer is another burning bottle smashing on the floor, setting more of the block on fire. Considering that half the weapons were, at some point, edible, you think it’s pretty clear that’s not a problem. But the Empress isn’t done.

“Can we talk? I’m the new Empress, and I don’t want to hurt you, I promise!”

“Fef, no!” Aquarius shouts. “They tried to blow us up!”

“I think they may not be accepting promises from empresses at this point,” Aries points out.

“They dumped a bucket on us!” Aquarius continues.

Sagittarius gurgles from the floor. You’re starting to think he may _actually_ dehydrate himself with all the sweating. And his eyes are streaming, that won’t help.

“It’s not their fault they’re here, the Condesce was probably going to do somefin awful to them!” The Empress leans into the door again.

Kanaya pulls her back. “That is almost certainly true, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try to set you on fire again. Quite the opposite.”

“And if anything happens to you, the rest of us are fucked beyond my ability to describe, so _stay back_ ,” Cancer snaps.

(You sort of want to intervene, as he elbows up to the door. Like things would also be fucked if anything happened to him…

Stop. Pull back. Reload.)

“We could just leave,” Gemini points out. “There’s no way they’d follow us. I could melt a statue and we could gild over the murals so we can’t see them…”

“Attention, alien assholes!” Cancer shouts. “This is your once-in-an-epoch opportunity to be the first aliens the new empress meets! She’s really mushy, you can befriend her and be treasured companions forever! Or you can sit in there and set things on fire until you starve.”

There’s the silence of people arguing just out of hearing.

(You SHOULD be able to tell what’s going on in the diplomatic blockset the same way you do the rest of the ship, but a few of the aliens were really quite good at locating and disabling or destroying your sensors. You only have a few data sources on the entire blockset, now.)

Finally, there’s a response. “If you really mean that…”

“We do!” the Empress says.

“Come back in a couple hours, we need to talk about this.”

“…Fine,” Cancer says.

Aries even lifts the broken door into place.

There’s a long pause. “So now where do we go?” Scorpio asks.

“Oh, fuck,” says the Empress.

* * *

They figure out how to occupy themselves somehow. Aquarius announces his intention of exploring the seadweller guest suite. Capricorn announces his intention of seeing if he can find anything to use as a floaty on the surface of the seadweller guest suite. Cancer announces his prediction that they're both going to end up screaming in short order. The Empress just unlocks the relevant door and warns them not to die.

(In short order, Capricorn heads back into the Imperial residenceblocks in search of float-capable objects and discovers the cat-lusus chewing up another head. He starts screaming. Not long after that, Aquarius discovers the animatronic miniature Gl'bgolyb. It's made of biowires and, you understand, remarkably lifelike. Aquarius hurls himself out of the water like a carp — it's really quite impressive — and he is, of course, screaming.)

(Aries has to go and shovel the heads back into the condemned concupiscenceblock before anyone else will return to the residenceblocks.)

Kanaya proposes that she will set up her sewing machine in the loungeblock, modify Scorpio some clothing she won't be tripping over, and take care of anything else that needs sewing. This is acclaimed as a great idea by everyone except Scorpio, who wants to follow Libra in her courageous and/or foolhardy further exploration of the subjugglator guest suite. When she tries to chase after her, she discovers that the end of her overlong (plush fuchsia) robe is caught under Taurus's four-wheeled device. Lesser fabrics might have torn. Scorpio just barely manages to avoid coming out of the robe entirely, and as it is ends up in an awkward toga while the fabric is disentangled. She concedes that she needs clothing assistance.

Sagittarius sweats _even more_. Nepeta chivvies him back into the residenceblock to take a shower, which goes fine, except for how he breaks several of the gold fixtures, and then afterwards can't find the clean towels. He improvises by grabbing the velvet outer shower curtain in the corner, but this of course only reveals the nude gold statue of the Condesce, and then he just plain passes out. Nepeta groans and turns him over to his lusus.

Most of the lusii are not nearly so helpful, and keep Taurus hopping. Metaphorically.

Libra, meanwhile, nonchalantly navigates between the still-smoldering fires from Gemini's earlier visit. She starts sniffing the walls from a few centimeters away. A couple of times she sticks her tongue out, then seems to think better of it. As well she should.

Cancer… fusses. With lots of shouting. He digs around the nutritionblock until he finds some snack food he thinks looks sufficiently innocuous to take around and shove in everyone's faces. "Yes, you're sick to your stomach from all this fuckery, maybe it's because you're _lightheaded from hunger_! Eat something, moron."

(He is _not_ the same, but at the same time he is, and this time, this time he might walk away alive—)

(Stop. Pull back. Reload.)

The Empress sits in the hall, alternating between frowning at the door to the diplomatic suite, and frowning at the lift door that leads out of the Imperial Deck. She looks like she has a headache. Cancer eventually makes her eat something.

Gemini sits in the hall, alternating between frowning at the palmhusk he picked up and frowning at the _last_ door. He reluctantly accepts food when Cancer shoves it in his face, but refuses to "explain what the fuck he's sulking about". Cancer goes and complains to Aries. Aries looks over his shoulder at the palmhusk and raises an eyebrow at him.

"It shouldn't be here," Gemini says, in a low voice. "Everything I've ever seen about it — it should not be here. There shouldn't even be access from here. And after all the shit we've seen here so far, I don't even want to know what—"

(He can't come in here _can't come in here **they can't be here—**_ )

(Stop. Pull back. Reload.)

(Stop. Pull back. Reload.)

"Leave it," Aries advises after a moment. "For now. We need to deal with the alien thing anyway."

Gemini doesn’t disagree with her, but he doesn’t look away from the door, either.

* * *

Your sensors reach far enough to tell the aliens have a really _heated_ debate. There is shouting and throwing things. Your best guess is that none of the thrown things are on fire, so there's that. One of them smashes, though.

Eventually, though, there's movement in the entryblock, several sets of footsteps picking their way between the caltrops. Based on your observation of them before they covered the sensors, you are predicting it will be Orange, Lavender, Red, and one of the Greens.

The broken door is gingerly shifted aside. "Uh, hi? Miss, uh, new empress?"

You were wrong. It's Blue Male. You imagined him being sat on to keep him from accompanying whatever group emerged.

The Empress springs to her feet. "Hi! I'm so glad you felt safe enough to talk to us."

"That may be putting it a little strongly," Lavender mutters, from just behind Blue Male. So you got that much right, at least.

Gemini, Aries, and Cancer are already out in the hall, and shuffle over to the Empress. Taurus, in the receivingblock, shouts to those farther in that the aliens have emerged. Scorpio drops what she's doing and runs. Now that the robe has been hemmed, it looks less ridiculous (although still plush and fuchsia) and she doesn't trip on anything. However, the robe still manages to snag on a piece of broken robot, and she arrives on the scene with a robotic foot thumping into her ankles. Libra arrives shortly afterwards despite her obvious equal enthusiasm, because she's had that cane long enough to know it doesn't work as well running full-tilt. Aquarius shows up without toweling off, so he's still dripping. (He's spent at least an hour in the shower trying to scrub off his brush with the "horrible slimy tentacles" of the miniature animatronic Gl'bgolyb. Your blood pusher _bleeds_ for him. How, how can he take the torment.) Sagittarius started hyperventilating at the thought of close encounters with "the bucket aliens" and gets left in the lounge, along with Capricorn, who is trying to sleep off a headache. Kanaya waits to make sure Taurus's four-wheeled device doesn't get hung up on anything again, while Nepeta peers around the residence suite door into the hall.

(Is that everyone accounted for? That's everyone. An Empress with such a — _cross-spectrum_ group of friends is just _bizarre_.)

Nobody screams at the terrifying! hornless! aliens! You're almost disappointed. No, you _are_ disappointed. But then you guess these are pretty mundane as aliens go. There's the (lack of) horns, and the skin that's all browns and tans and pinks, and some of them have pale hair, and the white sclera, those are probably pretty startling, but overall humans aren't shocking. The Troll Star Trek makeup department could handle them, if they found actors with short horns and floofed up their hair.

Blue Male and Lavender are accompanied by Red and Green Female. So you were almost right — just got Blue Male instead of Orange. Orange is probably holed up deeper in the suite prepared to trigger another dust explosion if anything goes wrong. Yeah, that's a much better role for him. Red's _almost_ succeeding in looking nonchalant about the sharpened table leg he's holding (the edge isn't much, but the tip's not bad), and whatever Lavender has up her sleeves is hidden there — Orange would look like he was trying to be threatening, and that would set off Aquarius for sure.

"So, uh," says Blue Male. "Sorry we got off on such a wrong note there!"

"Whale, it turned out okay!" the Empress says.

Personally you feel many interactions with bluebloods would be improved by dropping buckets of vinegar on their heads. (It's not your place to have opinions, but that's the kind of opinion it's allowable to not-have at the front of your mind, because the Condesce had very little objection to blueblood jokes.) But then he probably means more the trying to kill them part.

"We just, uh… were sort of expecting the next people to show up to, uh… kill us." Blue Male laughs nervously, and scratches the back of his head. "Um…"

Green Female elbows him, and takes over. "So to make sure, you're not going to kill us?"

"I don't want to kill _anemoneone_ ," the Empress says.

Aquarius mouths _See what I go through?_ at Scorpio, who nods sympathetically, and Libra, who apparently can't follow at all. Kanaya stomps serenely on his foot.

"That's a strong claim," Lavender says. "Except it doesn't actually say you're not going to kill us."

"Point to her," Libra says, holding up a finger.

"I'm not going to kill you," the Empress says firmly.

"Unless—"

"There's no _unless_ , I'm not going to kill them!"

"Fine," Kanaya says. "But _we_ reserve the right to kill them if they try to kill us, including if they try to kill you, because as has been pointed out, without you several of us are, ah, _doomed_."

Green Female folds her arms. "Why?"

"It's… a caste thing," Kanaya says.

"That, and not even Eridan or Gamzee would be here _now_ , ordinarily!" Libra adds. "We're too young to be here. We have no Fleet experience. None of the rest of the crew have any responsibility not to kill us. We have no connections — besides Fefer— Uh, the Empress. Without her, we are burnt bread product."

The aliens seem to buy it, which is good, since it's true.

"Fine," Green Female says. She offers a smile, not quite as wide as Blue Male's. "If we can resolve this peacefully, that would certainly be better! I'm Jade Harley."

* * *

The Empress insists on introducing everyone, even the absent Capricorn and Sagittarius. Lavender pulls a small notebook and pen out of her skirt pocket and takes notes. Gemini and Taurus have to run/wheel off in the middle to deal with the awakening of Gemini’s lusus, which is somewhat agitated.

(Stop. Pull back. Reload.)

(It has nothing to do with you.)

(It’s just a bicyclops.)

“So, what about you?” the Empress asks, after truthfully if misleadingly explaining that Sagittarius ‘isn’t feeling well’. “Are you, um, is your planet… uh…” She stalls out, presumably on how to ask if their planet has been ravaged by trolls.

“The last Empress insisted on taking us to tour this ship, to taunt our guardians,” Green Female says. “Then she just… died.” She fiddles with her hair. (Or possibly with the earpiece-and-microphone hidden in her hair.)

You can almost hear the Empress and friends puzzle over the Condesce wanting to taunt lusii, then conclude it’s probably not all that strange for her.

“So you’re pre-adults, too?” Libra asks. “Cool.”

“It’s not _cool_ that Her Imperious Condescension kidnapped them, Terezi–” Cancer snaps.

“Cool that we’re not here with ADULT aliens.”

The aliens look like they’d be perfectly happy to be replaced by adult aliens.

“Our planet was, uh, intact when we left,” Lavender ventures. “Would you maybe happen to know…?”

The Empress makes a face. “I’ll… probably have to ask the crew.”

“The crew is… uh…” Cancer also makes a face. “There’s something _wrong_ with the crew. I don’t suppose you know what’s wrong with the crew? Probably nobody knows.”

“So that’s not normal, for adult trolls?” Lavender asks. “It was noticed they were… hmm… worryingly single-minded.”

“Absolutely not normal,” Aquarius says firmly, then ruins the effect with “…I think.”

“It didn’t use to be normal,” Scorpio says, now sounding a little concerned. “But what if it is normal now? What if they, like, fry everyone’s thinkpans at Conscription, and make you fixate on the highest seadweller on your ship?”

The Empress makes a strangled noise. Aquarius looks intrigued, then guilty, then alarmed. Probably realized there can be only one high _est_ seadweller per ship.

“I’ve never heard anything about that,” Aries says. “…I guess that doesn’t rule it out, but…”

“We should get Sollux to look it up,” Libra suggests.

Lavender looks a little taken aback by this sudden detour into Conscription-related paranoia. “…I can see it’s not normal for you, anyway.”

But Scorpio’s just winding up. “What if they _already did it_ to Equius, and that’s why he’s so… so…”

“No, that doesn’t work,” Cancer says. “Zahhak’s conflicted about seadwellers. He gets _weird_ about purples.”

“He’s not _that_ weird,” Nepeta objects.

“He is definitely that weird.”

“Not compared to the crew here!”

“…No, not _that_ that weird.”

As the Conscription-related thinkpan-frying speculation continues, Blue Male leans over to whisper to the others. “Have they forgotten about us?”

“Let them talk,” Lavender whispers back. “It’s very… enlightening.”

You bet it is.

Green Female adjusts her hair again. “Dirk wants to know if they’re armed?” she murmurs.

“They’re trolls,” Red says. “They’re always armed. But the new empress has a weird double trident like the old one, only smaller, and I can see a… looks like a sickle, a cane, a… one of them has a whip for some reason? And there’s a gun.”

Aquarius is gesturing wildly with the gun in question, until the returning Gemini yanks it out of his grip psionically. “Don’t point that thing at me, ED.”

“I wasn’t! Give it back.”

“No.”

“How’s your dad?” Aries interrupts before Aquarius can reply.

“He’s okay. He’s in the respiteblock for now.”

“Your parents are here?” Lavender asks, alarmed.

“Our what? Our lusii are here.”

The ensuing conversation goes in circles for a good ten minutes until Taurus returns, with his lusus, and the aliens realize trolls are not raised by trolls, and are baffled and concerned. Then the Empress and company realize these aliens are raised by the same kind of aliens, and are baffled and concerned.

The aliens are still very wary, but they’re getting a little less ready for violence. This may actually resolve peacefully. You’re actually not disappointed.

* * *

“So,” Lavender ventures carefully, “if you ask the crew, and it turns out our planet is intact… is there any way of getting us back there?”

“Even if it’s… um, even if it is, uh… even if it’s in trouble, we’d still like to go back,” Green Female adds. “Without causing it more trouble.”

“Um…” The Empress looks at the others. “That… should be possible? Right? If I said to just go to a planet and drop people off…?”

“If you’re not sure, we should probably hold off,” Lavender says. Blue Male’s face falls.

“Sorry,” says the Empress. “I’m just, um… really still feeling my way.”

“We can see that,” Blue Male says. He smiles. “It means a lot to us that you _want_ to help.”

(You really believe she really does. This is _so strange_.)

“While we try to figure out where we stand with the crew, and where your planet stands with the Empire,” Aries says, “ _do_ you have enough food?”

Green Female adjusts her hair and rolls her eyes, shaking her head slightly. Maybe she is rejecting Orange’s opinions on which information to share? At least you expect it’s Orange.

“…For the moment, yes,” Lavender says. “The… previous empress… had asked to sample a number of Earth foods, which were brought along… we’ve been rationing. But if we could get some information on what food you might be able to offer us?”

“Please nothing involving grubs,” Blue Male mutters.

Cancer snorts. “I’d invite you to come look at the residenceblock’s stores and see what we have, but you’d be traumatized for life.”

“We’ll consider that,” Green Female says. You bet Orange just volunteered to take the risk rather than just accept whatever possibly suspect food they’re offered.

“I’m not fucking kidding about the traumatizing,” Cancer says.

“He’s really not,” the Empress agrees, cringing.

“There was, um,” Taurus says. “Uh… The taxidermy’s probably the worst.”

Aquarius shudders. “You didn’t see the concupiscenceblock.”

“It doesn’t compare to the taxidermy, but there are these really ugly fish…”

“I liked the fish!”

“There was a life-size gold nude statue of the Condesce in the shower,” Aries says, sounding more delighted than horrified. 

“Oh, is that what happened to Equius?”

“Taxidermy?” Blue Male asks. He glances at Green Female for some reason.

“The heads of all the previous Heiresses the Condesce defeated and killed,” Kanaya elaborates. “Or… a lot of them, anyway. Maybe not all of them.”

“And that subjugglator in the respiteblock,” Aquarius adds.

“And the Summoner,” Scorpio adds.

“That was in the subjugglator guest suite, not the residenceblocks.”

All the aliens look highly disturbed. Except Green Female, who only looks medium disturbed for some reason. You guess she has some sort of personal taxidermy connection?

"I think we may still want to look ourselves," Lavender says. "Though thank you very much for the warning."

"No problem!" the Empress says, and then there's an awkward silence as no one can figure out where to go next.

Finally, Lavender says, "We should go tell the others about all this," as if they haven't been listening in the whole time.

"There are more of you?" Aquarius asks, sounding a little alarmed.

"…Eight of us," Lavender says.

"Oh."

The aliens withdraw back through their battered, scorched kill-zone to the depths of the diplomatic guest suite.

Kanaya sighs sadly. "I suppose there was really no chance they'd invite us to stay in there with them."

No, there _really_ wasn't.


End file.
